2 hours ago, Halion said:

As to what the harriers use, we get a description of some special resource, not big casks full of nitre, but "several tight paper scrolls and small glittering tsangusuri wards". Off the top of my head I'm not sure what that is but it hints at a creative use of magical objects or something equally esoteric. I don't think any of the standard Asahina wards are of the variety that destroys masonry. This may be a mystery to be later addressed.

They are Scrolls loaded with powder and the tsangusuri wards maybe are fuses or some trick to make a bigger explosion.

Remember that is a place that is 80% build with wood paper and varnish.

About the gaijin pepper ban, yeah it's a crime by imperial law but they are fireworks in every big festival.

Fireworks are "not gaijin pepper". They are "rokugani pepper". 😄

They way you describe something matters here, but yes. I believe he used gunpowder and the wards were perhaps a manner of making sure they all blew up at the same time? If they were all wards connected to the same prayer and their effect was equivalent of bursting into a small flame, they could pretty much work as a remote bomb.

32 minutes ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Fireworks are "not gaijin pepper". They are "rokugani pepper". 😄

Oh! Agasha-sama, the togarashi spice mix you are handling is extremely powerful! 🤣 🤣

4 hours ago, Daigotsu Arashi said:

That's look more racional, than crosing the sea of Shadows.

Pavarre? Same dog ,different collar? Maybe problems with copywriting with 7th sea.

'Scuse me? 7th Sea never had anything to do with Rokugan, so I don't see what the relevance is.

Double post.

46 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

'Scuse me? 7th Sea never had anything to do with Rokugan, so I don't see what the relevance is.

Everyday you learn something new

My mistake , always I thought Merenae and Thrane were part of the intend of connection between l5r and 7th sea.

So why change of name?

1 hour ago, Daigotsu Arashi said:

Everyday you learn something new

My mistake , always I thought Merenae and Thrane were part of the intend of connection between l5r and 7th sea.

So why change of name?

I think FFG simply wanted to reinvent certain aspects of the game to better fit the story they envisioned (for example, Doji Hoturi becoming Doji Hotaru). That included many of the gaijin nations, which also included these ones. Whatever story it is they wish to eventually tell that involves the gaijin from White Stag, assuming they ever get around to telling it, it would seem that their own idea, Pavarre, just works better for them.

7 hours ago, Halion said:

There is a short sidebar about Gaijin Pepper on page 7 of the Game Master's Kit. It is banned throughout the empire, but certain clan schools are rumoured to use it.

Thank you!

Could be as simple as getting rid of some of the elements of the history of Merenae and Thrane. If the names had been kept people would probably assume "It's the same until stated otherwise", but by making the country a different country that assumption largely goes away.

Given some of the backstory elements for Merenae and Thrane that were invented to make sure they didn't get in the way of the precious Yodotai...

Given the contortions the writers had to go through to make Thrane and Meranrae be at about the same level of military technology in the post clan war era as they were at White Stag, I think cooking up a new nation is hardly the worst idea.

14 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Given the contortions the writers had to go through to make Thrane and Meranrae be at about the same level of military technology in the post clan war era as they were at White Stag, I think cooking up a new nation is hardly the worst idea.

To be fair, Rokugan itself has been stuck in Medieval Stasis for nigh on a thousand years, so the rest of the world operating on the same trope, while a little silly, does make a certain degree of sense.

Granted, if FFG decide to do a story where Pavarre invades , I'd be game.

The stasis isn't quite as bad this time. The Kami and their generation didn't use katanas - they used chokuto. In our history, they were used in Japan from the 3rd to 9th centuries and in China from up to 500 years before. Katanas were introduced in about the 13th century, if my sources are correct, up until the early 19th century. That actually offers a range of 1,000 years of evolution of blades for Rokugan.

If we’re talking a timeline that roughly correlates to Emperor Jimmu (660 BCE), then 1123 is 463 CE, which would be mid-Yamato period in Japan / Sixteen Kingdoms period in China.

If the L5R timeline correlates its start to the introduction of Buddhism to Japan (approx 538 CE) then 1123 is 1661 and is early Edo period Japan under the Tokugawa Shogunate / early Qing period, last Imperial dynasty in China. Which feels right.

So when the Kami fell to earth, it would have been equivalent to the start of the 6th century and we’re currently in the 17th century. For comparison, the European weapon would be the spatha to the knightly arming sword to the long sword over the same timeframe.

Edited to add: The Battle of White Stag would have occurred in our year 980 using the above, and the first recorded military use of gunpowder dates to 904.

Granted, that gunpowder was for some crude “portable” “handcannons”. So it wasn’t even a matchlock which was, if I remember my history right, the first kind of firearm that the portuguese introduced in Japan. So, having a closed to outside societies is not that hard to imagine, it’s hard to imagine if all the other societies are xenophobic and traditionalist as well and society overall is stuck everywhere.

1 hour ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Granted, that gunpowder was for some crude “portable” “handcannons”. So it wasn’t even a matchlock which was, if I remember my history right, the first kind of firearm that the portuguese introduced in Japan. So, having a closed to outside societies is not that hard to imagine, it’s hard to imagine if all the other societies are xenophobic and traditionalist as well and society overall is stuck everywhere.

That’s fair. On the Thrane/Merenae side, the equivalent would be the Portuguese Discoveries circa 1543. If that’s the Battle of White Stag, then the Thrane of today awoyld be in the year 2224.

To keep the same frame of reference, White Stag would need to be moved up to around the year 1005 in the Rokugani calender.

Edited to add: I don’t think that would change much, to be honest. Is there a particular reason we need a full 600 years since that battle? It being a little over a hundred years ago still works. The only reference prior to the Battle of White Stag is the Daidoji igniting hidden caches to blow up a Lion camp at the Battle of Osari Plains in 437. Equating to our year 975, it’s well within the range of gunpowder development, and could still be 600 years before the Thrane shoot up the harbour.

On 7/11/2020 at 10:40 PM, Daigotsu Arashi said:

Oh! Agasha-sama, the togarashi spice mix you are handling is extremely powerful! 🤣 🤣

To be fair, there is a distinct difference between flashpowder and 'true' gunpowder, too.

Early fireworks didn't contain much saltpetre and couldn't be made finely ground without risking sparks . It's fine for fire arrows and early flamethrowers but not much more than that.

'Corned' Powder is something invented much later and has both a slightly different recipe (same stuff, different proportions) and a different method of manufacture. THAT stuff was so much more powerful it basically made early-generation cannons obsolete because it was suicide to try and fire one loaded with the stuff.

On 7/8/2020 at 10:38 PM, Diogo Salazar said:

Daidoji Uji vs Kakita Yoshi && Doji Kuwanan vs Doji Hotar

Don't discount Kakita Toshimoko. Yes, Yoshi is his family daimyo but if you are seen as being in rebellion against your liege are on shaky ground if your own vassals get insubordinate - and Yoshi is the family daimyo who's lost the family stronghold both to the Lion and now to scorched earth. If the two split openly you could well see the Kakita fracture as a family.

13 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Don't discount Kakita Toshimoko. Yes, Yoshi is his family daimyo but if you are seen as being in rebellion against your liege are on shaky ground if your own vassals get insubordinate - and Yoshi is the family daimyo who's lost the family stronghold both to the Lion and now to scorched earth. If the two split openly you could well see the Kakita fracture as a family.

I honestly don't think it will be seen as Yoshi losing the family stronghold. It will be framed as Hotaru not being able to protect it. Yoshi has a golden opportunity to support Kuwanan against Hotaru by framing this against her (knowing him he might even honestly believe this).

Hotaru / Toshimoko / Uji

Kuwanan / Yoshi / Takamori

2 teams in a series of head to head competitions: tea ceremony, ikebana, origami, poetry, and a game of Sadane that doesn’t end until someone literally dies from the sick burns.

On 7/14/2020 at 9:30 PM, Tonbo Karasu said:

The stasis isn't quite as bad this time. The Kami and their generation didn't use katanas - they used chokuto. In our history, they were used in Japan from the 3rd to 9th centuries and in China from up to 500 years before. Katanas were introduced in about the 13th century, if my sources are correct, up until the early 19th century. That actually offers a range of 1,000 years of evolution of blades for Rokugan.

Good luck unsheathing a straight sword in a iajutsu duel

On 7/11/2020 at 7:03 PM, Halion said:

The gaijin involved in the Battle of White Stag are said to be from Pavarre. (5e Emerald Empire pp15-16)

As a Spaniard, the word "Pavarre" makes me thing about the Kingdom of Navarre ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Navarre ). I wonder if the writers used "Navarre" as an inspiration for "Pavarre", or the similitude is just happenstance.

About any previous links between "7th Sea" and "Legend of the Five Rings", I think that Merenae and Thrane don't exist in the "7th Sea" setting. If they were supposed to be analogues for the British and the Portuguese, the closest thing in "7th Sea" would be Albion and Castille.

Given the proximity of Navarre to Portugal, it’d be impressive happenstance.

Sounds better than Nortugal, though.